Travel to Baghdad, and you will see a familiar face amid the rolling blackouts – Katie Couric’s.

Iraq’s Electricity Ministry used the U.S. journalist and television host’s smiling face without her permission for a new campaign to promote their efforts of addressing the city’s calamitous energy shortcomings.

Couric, whose new show syndicated talk show Katie is set to premiere this fall, called the billboards ‘bizarrely flattering.'

Unwitting face: An Iraqi government billboard featuring Katie Couric, part of a public relations campaign to change the public's perception about the country's chronic electricity shortages

Something else: Couric wrote on Twitter that the story was bizarrely flattering - 'or something!'

Iraq’s government is trying to deal with a PR nightmare by showing they’re attempting to address the public energy crisis, the New York Times reported.

They chose to do so by plastering Couric’s face across the city.

The Electricity Ministry’s spokesman, Musaab al-Mudarrs, told the Times: ‘We were looking for a bright and optimistic face that inspires the people to imagine a better future for electricity.’

Their hope is that the face of
‘America’s Sweetheart’ – what Couric was called while hosting NBC’s
Today show – will encourage residents of the sweltering city.

Flattering? Couric called the unapproved use of her image bizarrely flattering

America's Sweetheart: Katie Couric WAS co-host of the NBC Today show and left in 2006 for CBS; her new syndicated talk show, Katie, will air this fall

For her part, Couric seems more amused than upset over the unapproved use of her person to raise spirits.

She wrote on Twitter: ‘Bizarrely…flattering? Or something!!’

Her reaction is much more mild-mannered than director Woody Allen's.

When clothing brand American Apparel used an unathorised picture of Allen dressed as a Hasidic Jew from the 1977 film Annie Hall, the film maker sued.

A rumpled Allen said at the time: 'They're not classy. If I'm going to do a commercial, it would have to be for, as I said, a large amount of money.'